| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: woman than to marry her. I did not understand him at first; but at
length he explained himself, viz. that she ought to be baptized. I
agreed with him in that part readily, and wished it to be done
presently. "No, no; hold, sir," says he; "though I would have her
be baptized, by all means, for I must observe that Will Atkins, her
husband, has indeed brought her, in a wonderful manner, to be
willing to embrace a religious life, and has given her just ideas
of the being of a God; of His power, justice, and mercy: yet I
desire to know of him if he has said anything to her of Jesus
Christ, and of the salvation of sinners; of the nature of faith in
Him, and redemption by Him; of the Holy Spirit, the resurrection,
Robinson Crusoe |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells: up nor down, and every effort resulting in unexpected movements. Now I
would be pressed against the glass with the full force of Cavor's thrust,
now I would be kicking helplessly in a void. Now the star of the electric
light would be overhead, now under foot. Now Cavor's feet would float up
before my eyes, and now we would be crossways to each other. But at last
our goods were safely bound together in a big soft bale, all except two
blankets with head holes that we were to wrap about ourselves.
Then for a flash Cavor opened a window moonward, and we saw that we were
dropping towards a huge central crater with a number of minor craters
grouped in a sort of cross about it. And then again Cavor flung our little
sphere open to the scorching, blinding sun. I think he was using the
The First Men In The Moon |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: orphan asylum connected with this convent, du Sacre Coeur, a
round, dimpled bit of three-year-old humanity, who regarded the
world from a pair of gravely twinkling black eyes, and only took
a chubby thumb out of a rosy mouth long enough to answer in
monosyllabic French. It was a child without an identity; there
was but one name that any one seemed to know, and that, too, was
vague,--Camille.
She grew up with the rest of the waifs; scraps of French and
American civilization thrown together to develop a seemingly
inconsistent miniature world. Mademoiselle Camille was a queen
among them, a pretty little tyrant who ruled the children and
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: and still remembering Magdalene ale and his acquaintance with
Mrs. Ainsworth of Cambridge. But youth is a hot season with
all; when a man smells April and May he is apt at times to
stumble; and in spite of a disordered practice, Pepys's
theory, the better things that he approved and followed
after, we may even say were strict. Where there was "tag,
rag, and bobtail, dancing, singing, and drinking," he felt
"ashamed, and went away;" and when he slept in church, he
prayed God forgive him. In but a little while we find him
with some ladies keeping each other awake "from spite," as
though not to sleep in church were an obvious hardship; and
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